New Virginia, Iowa

New Virginia sits on a crest of rolling green hills in Virginia Township, in the southwestern corner of Warren County. The town was laid out in eighteen fifty-five or fifty-six, though not recorded until eighteen fifty-nine, and the first lots sold for twenty-five dollars each. John Felton built the first home, a log house, soon after arriving in eighteen fifty-four, and Joel Mason opened the first store.

By the spring of eighteen fifty-seven a schoolhouse stood in town, and the Methodist congregation worshiped in it until building a church in eighteen seventy-four. The name follows a common Iowa pattern: settlers who came from Virginia or its neighboring states brought the old name with them and put the word New in front of it, staking a claim on familiar ground in an unfamiliar country.